


Three Cups of Sugar

by ashesandhoney



Series: It Came From Tumblr (Ficlet Collections) [7]
Category: The Infernal Devices Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bakery, Fluff, Multi, OT3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-05 17:06:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11582454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashesandhoney/pseuds/ashesandhoney
Summary: This is an all human AU in which everyone works in a little bake shop that Charlotte owns and there is a lot of flirting. Will does a terrible job of working in customer service, Tessa is the new employee and Jem is a baker who works in the back.





	1. The New Girl

Working in a bake shop was not what Will had imagined when he had imagined his twenties. Wasn’t he supposed to have a nice car and a well paying job with a path right to the top of some firm all laid out for him? Somehow, life hadn’t gotten the memo and instead of that, he had bitchy customers who ordered things that Starbucks served but they didn’t even carry the ingredients for.

“What do you mean you don’t have vanilla syrup? What is this place?”

“A bakery ma'am, we sell 19 different kinds of baguette if you wanted some bread but unfortunately we only  carry three choices for coffee.”

After she had huffed off in a rage about his terrible service and his obscene lack of low-calorie flavoured coffee syrups, one of the bakers stuck his head out from the kitchen and laughed. Will turned to roll his eyes and Jem laughed and wiped a bit of something off his face with the back of his hand. Stupid adorable baker boy. His shift would be done in another hour and Will would get to spend the rest of the day selling the things he had made.

“She’s going to write a terrible yelp review.”

“Good, she can scare off all the other soccer moms,” Will said.

“Soccer moms order birthday cakes by the truck full, they make up half our business.”

“Listen Mr. Practical,” Will started and then the bell rang and he turned back to the door. The woman standing just inside was tall and pretty in a girl-next-door kind of way and it took him a moment to realize why she looked familiar. When he did, he said, “New girl!”

“I didn’t know we had a new girl,” Jem said quietly coming to stand beside Will at the counter and watch her cross the room to them. She had worn black pants and a white button down top like she was supposed to and Will had been given a pink apron and a training manual to pass onto her until the assistant manager arrived at one to give her a proper training session. Will didn’t pull it out and send her off to the office to read it though.

“Does everyone look so angry when they leave?” she asked glancing back up the street. Accent. He’d forgotten about the accent though he’d remember her eyes and how tall she was. He had only met her briefly on the day she had interviewed. Her name was Tammy or Tessie maybe. American by the sound of the voice.

“Only the ones who think we’re a coffee shop,” Will said.

“Oh,” she said.

“I’m Will, I’m not an assistant manager even though I work more hours than they do because I apparently annoy customers. This is Jem, he doesn’t annoy anyone but we also don’t let him out of the back often because he must slave away over the cupcakes for nine hours a day,” Will said.

“He’s being ridiculous, we’ve all considered tossing him into the frosting blender more than once,” Jem said leaning forward to shake her hand and smile at her. She had the sense to look a little dazzled by it. Stupid adorable baker boy with his ridiculously colored hair and the powdered sugar on his face. He always smelled like sugar and yeast and nothing seemed to rattle him, even being yelled at about how blue was too blue when someone ordered blue cupcakes. He went home and gave violin lessons in the evenings and went for five kilometer runs before he started work at 4am. Will wondered sometimes if he also killed kittens or something to balance out all the perfection.

A moment later she said, “Tessa, I’m Tessa.”

“You’re stuck out front with me to help with the afternoon rush,” Will said.

“She’s not trained yet, I need her,” Jem said.

“You don’t get to claim new employees before they’ve been trained,” Will argued.

“I have to box the entire wedding order before I go home. I will be here until four if I have to do it alone. Do you mind? Charlotte will give you the proper tour when she gets here, all you have to do is fold boxes and stick bows on things, it’s easy,” he said to the girl.

Will pouted a little as his new coworker was ushered off into the back to box cakes with the stupid adorable baker boy while he had to turn back to the ringing bell at the door and serve sandwiches to a pair of very nice little old ladies who told him he was dashing. On most days he would have been pleased with the interaction, it was nice and who doesn’t like to be called dashing but he was still jealous of the two of them in the back, wrapping presents and chatting.

Charlotte arrived and bustled past him to join them back there in the customer free zone while Will took a cake order for a blue birthday cake and had to bite his tongue to keep from asking how blue was too blue for the icing. He could hear her giving instructions on all manner of things and Jem adding little comments. Will leaned against the counter and watched the empty shop as the lunch rush died away. He tidied and day dreamed for awhile.

Finally new girl was ejected from the back and Jem ran by them both with a, “Have fun, see you tomorrow,” and a wave. She smiled after him with that expression that Will knew he usually made at Jem as Jem retreated into the distance.

“He’s so cute and if you can figure out what he’s into, do let me know because it’s been a year and half since I started working here and I haven’t got a clue,” Will said.

She stared at him for a minute and then laughed.

“What?” Will asked.

“He told me not to take your flirting to seriously because you’ve never follow through on it,” she said.

“He did not say that.”

“He said that, I swear he said that.”

“Fuck me,” Will muttered and dropped his head down on the counter with a thunk that made her wince beside him.

“Have I gotten a job in the middle of some kind of soap opera?”

“Basically, you haven’t even met the customers yet. There’s this guy who is love with Charlotte who orders two sandwiches and three cups of coffee on Saturday afternoons and spends all afternoon trying to get up enough courage to say hello to her and never does. There’s lots of pining and staring though. Oh and the married couple who have this long running fight over scones. They usually come in on Sunday mornings before church and order scones to go. It’s enough to write a novel.”

“And then you and the baker pining after each other?” she said.

“Not pining, mildly interested,” Will said.

“You just banged your face on a wooden counter top.”

“Somewhat interested.”

“Liar.”

“You’re just as somewhat interested in him as I am. Or at least you’re interested in his ass.”

“You can shut up.”

“Because I’m right?” Will asked.

Before she could shoot something back, Charlotte came out of the back and started explaining the cash register to Tessa. She met his eye over Charlotte’s head as a customer came in and started running off a complex cookie order before Will had even gotten the order pad open. He winked back and then the afternoon rush was off. Tessa worked the register and Will filled orders because it was faster. Charlotte ran back and forth, emptying tables and fetching special orders from the back.

By the time it quieted down to no one in the store but a pair of teenagers sharing a piece of cake by the window, Will had decided he liked the new girl. She bantered back when he teased her, she caught on fast, she was polite where he would have broken out the very sarcastic use of the word, “Ma'am,” and she had a great smile. She leaned on the counter and held up one foot, rotating it slowly with a grimace.

“Oh, service industry foot pain, a great joy of the job,” he said.

“Hmm,” she said.

“Are you back tomorrow?” he asked, ignoring her foot and the way her hair fell in her face as she leaned down to try and adjust her shoes. He already had one stupidly adorable co-worker, he did not need two.

“Yeah, same time,” she said.

“Good, no disappearing into the back with Carstairs, you have to stay out here and protect me from the soccer moms with your impossible politeness,” he said.

“I’m shocked that you’ve survived this long,” she said.

“It’s been a near miss a few times.”

“I will protect you tomorrow.”

“My hero,” Will said.

He was supposed to leave before she did but when he found out that she didn’t have a car, he loitered and helped himself to a leftover sandwich until Charlotte had finished training her on how to close up the shop. He drove her to a small apartment building that really was within walking distance of the shop and teased her about whether or not she was brave enough to come back the next day.

“I’ve had dates that went worse than today,” she said.

“As have I,” Will said. “We’ll do it all over again tomorrow.”

“I plan on trying to set you up with Jem,” she said.

“I’ve probably already lost that one, he’s way more interested in being set up with you.”

“Now you’re being ridiculous.”

“Flirt a little tomorrow, see how it goes.”

“Will it make you bang your face on the counter again?”

“Maybe.”

“Then I should tread carefully.”

“That you should.”

“Good night, William.”

“Good night, Teresa.”


	2. The Wedding Order

“We should just run away together, leave all this behind,” Tessa said. 

She was perched on the edge of a counter, a smear of pink icing on her face and a bit of powdered sugar on her cheek. Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun and a hairnet. She had a paper mask hanging around her neck. She looked annoyed and adorable. 

“Charlotte would hunt us down and kill us all and I don’t want the last thing I see in this life to be her looking disappointed in me as she stabs me with a cake lifter,” Will said. 

The cafe was closed on a Thursday afternoon so that they could get a giant wedding order out the door on Friday morning. Even the staff from the front had been roped into it. Tessa and Will had been given tasks like stirring icing until the colors were smooth or folding little boxes and tying ribbons on them or putting decorated cookies into little plastic bags and tying those with ribbons. 

Jem and a few of the other real bakers had to do most of the work. The cake decorator was queen of the back room that day and she kept singing Irish ballads about death, while everyone else stared at her. Tessa seemed alarmed by how many of Bridget’s songs were about people dying horribly. Everyone else was used to it. 

“How many people are coming to this wedding? Why do all of them need two hand decorated cookies? That is the question that I want answered,” Jem said. 

Jem had his back to them. He was doing something complicated with frosting and a tier of a cake. Will leaned back without looking and bumped his shoulder against Jem’s back. For a brief moment, Jem leaned back as well and Will smiled. Then Jem was back to work and Will turned his attention back to the damn hand decorated cookies. 

They were all dry after being done earlier that day by the early morning crew and now Will and Tessa were in charge of bagging them. He put them in the little bag, she tied the ribbon and dropped them in the box and put it into a larger box. Everything was white and pastel pink and full of paper cuts. 

“We could run away just for an hour though,” Tessa said. 

“And get drunk,” Will suggested. 

“That brings us back to five foot tall murderous bakery owners,” Jem said. 

“Fine, not drunk,” Will said. 

“I’m just hungry. There are no customers to care if we all leave at once to go eat,” Tessa said. 

“Let me finish this one and you can take me anywhere you want,” Jem said. 

Will laughed and nodded. Having an hour to spend with the two of them in a restaurant down the street sounded like it would be good enough to balance out the prospect of being trapped in the sugar and vanilla scented world of pink wedding cookies for another four hours. Tessa grinned at Jem’s back and hopped off the table and started taking off her apron. She was offering up suggestions of places they could go as Jem finished his work.

They ended up choosing a little restaurant down the block where they could order plates of things and share them. Tessa argued and laughed and when Will started an argument about poets, she kicked him in the shin in a fit of annoyance. She sat across from him in a booth and was somehow less at ease than she usually was at work. She fiddled with her cutlery and toyed with her food as she talked and she talked more than she usually did.

Jem was quiet but smiling through most of the meal. Will leaned into him at one point and dropped an arm around his shoulder to say, “Tell me you’ve read something by e.e. cummings so you can back me up on this.”

“I at least recognize that name,” Jem said.

“Ok, then just smile and nod, I’m right,” Will said.

“He’s not right. He’s being a pretentious white boy,” Tessa said.

“While I am all three of those things, I still object to the tone of voice you just used.”

“Then stop.”

“And agree with you?”

“Then at least you wouldn’t be wrong any more. We can’t do anything about the pretentiousness but at least you don’t have to be so wrong,” Tessa said.

Which made Jem laugh. He laughed and leaned back into Will’s arm. Will shook his head, trying to maintain the annoyance for the little show with Tessa but he couldn’t keep the smile off his face. He exchanged a look with Tessa who met his gaze with a look that either said, “You’re welcome,” in a very snide tone or, “That doesn’t count as him taking your side. It was possible that it said both things at the same time. He reached out and tapped his foot against her ankle under the table. He wasn’t sure what he meant by it but she smiled at him like she got it.

The moment passed and Jem was sitting up again and the conversation had woven on to something other than how pretentious Will’s taste in literature was. Tessa hadn’t let the conversation go without a few good jabs at Hemingway but at least Hemingway deserved her ire more than some of her other targets.

Eventually they had to go back work but Will at least went back with a smile on his face.


	3. The Movie Night

Will was one of those people who had a long list of movies and books that he thought everyone needed to see. He had been mocked before for being the guy who said, “You’ve never seen that?” about everything. He’d once had a girlfriend who’d told him it was his worst trait. He took offense to that. He had a myriad of truly awful traits and she’d chosen his obsession with movies and books? If he was going to get his ass dumped, he wanted it to be for a decent enough reason. The dumping hadn’t stopped him from doing it.

“Wait, you’ve never read anything by Tolkien? Anything? Even the Hobbit?” he said to Tessa one night while they were closing.  He drove her home most days and they’d taken to spending the clean after close and the drive discussing movies and books and having long arguments about fictional characters and quoting poetry at each other. 

“I tried, it’s tedious.”

“You admit to liking Austen.”

“I love Austen. Jane Austen is not tedious.”

“She is.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Tolkien laid the ground work for every fantasy novel of the twentieth century.”

“Do you want to have the Mary Shelley argument?” Tessa asked him pointing a half-washed spoon at his nose. Bubbles dripped off of it and back into the sink. She dunked it back in the water and went back to scrubbing.

“I am not arguing that he created the fantasy genre, I am arguing that he had an impact on modern high fantasy. Frankenstein wasn’t high fantasy.”

“I’m not budging on this. Tolkien can have an impact on a genre and still be tedious. Hemingway had an impact on Western literature too but that doesn’t make him any less awful.”

Will sighed as he took a cup from her and dried it before he put it back on the rack. “You kill me. Have you seen the movie?”

“Which one?”

“The Lord of the Rings, Theresa, The Lord of the Rings.”

“No.”

“You need to. If you won’t read it, you should at least watch it,” he said.

And that had been the first movie night that he had managed to invite her to. She had laughed as he’d driven her back to his apartment and spent a very long time looking at his bookshelves. He had a bachelor apartment. It only had the one room and he hadn’t realized that he had invited her into his bedroom until she was already there. It wasn’t having her in the space where he slept that unnerved him. It was the way she looked at his messy eclectic collection of books like they meant something.

She had enjoyed the movie and he had managed to cajole her into a promise to give the novel another try. It took them two weeks to make it through the trilogy and the Hobbit movies while Tessa sat on his tiny sofa beside and tucked her feet up and whispered commentary to him as they watched. Will didn’t like it when people talked through movies but when Tessa did it, it was endearing not annoying.  

He kept coming up with things that she hadn’t seen that he could use as a reason for another invitation. He’d never had anyone turn it around on him before Tessa.

“You really need to see Stardust,” Tessa told him. “Have you at least read the book? You seem like the kind of guy to read Neil Gaiman.” 

“I read American Gods in high school. It was good,” Will said. 

“Stardust is different. Really different but you still need to watch it. Then read it. Or the other way around. The two versions are different but both of them are amazing.” 

“Are you going to offer to lend it to me?” 

“We should have a movie night on the weekend, I’ll bring you the book too.” 

And somehow the movie nights had become almost as common as the carpool. Sometimes they went to his little apartment, sometimes they went to her little studio apartment in a squat brick apartment block and sat on the third hand couch she’d buried in quilts to cover the places where the stuffing was trying to escape. At first,they watched specific movies. She wanted him to see Stardust. He wanted her to see Labyrinth. They traded off favourite Miyazaki movies after discovering that the other didn’t think it was embarrassing to be obsessed with an animated movie. 

Eventually it settled into just sitting and watching Netflix. They watched bad movies and tore them apart. They watched comedies and dramas and Will let her be his excuse to watch romances that he otherwise would pretend to be too cool to enjoy.

And she fell asleep on his shoulder sometimes. She loved a movie and was completely engrossed in it or she argued with the screen or she was asleep in the first half-hour. He had started settling in and twisting around so she could curl against his chest and sleep through the explosions in a Transformers movie or the political intrigue in some thriller. 

Later, she’d wake up and blink up at him like she couldn’t remember where she was. Sometimes she’d blush up at him and he’d poke her in the nose until she was giggling and pulling away from him. 

There had to have been a point where he could have made it into something. Some point where it would have been alright to kiss her or to ask her out on a proper date or something. He’d missed it. They had settled into being Just Friends and he didn’t know how to open the topic now. So, they just sort of drifted in this cuddly sort of friendship that Will had gotten so comfortable in that he was afraid to ruin by asking for more. 

She woke up and blushed at him and he pushed her hair out of her face and accused her of not liking the movie until she laughed and pushed away from him. He’d eventually go home to lie in bed and smile at the ceiling while he replayed the time he’d spent with her in his head on a loop.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *unapologetically gives Tessa my taste in books*
> 
> I read the Hobbit in 7th grade. I graduated high school before I finished Return of the King. Tolkien is tedious. I did finish them but I never really liked them. Except for the bit near the very end where Merry and Pippen go back and clean out all the bad guys in the Shire.


	4. The Opening Shift

Tessa had never opened the cafe on her own before. Jem had the morning bake shift and he was there before her. There were big bake days and then the normal days. The sandwiches had been done the day before. The pastries were Bridget’s domain and she would have stabbed him if he’d tried to take her cupcake decorating day away from her. 

This was a normal day. All that needed done was the fresh breads and a few of the pick up pastries like scones and muffins. It was a one person job so he had the place to himself. 

When he did, he turned on the stereo and listened to music. This morning he had a collection of Strauss’s pieces. Usually he went with the sprawling pieces for these mornings alone. He lived in a poorly insulated little attic apartment above a family with toddlers, so there wasn’t much chance to put on a symphony at full volume and just listen to the entire thing. 

Tessa arrived on a key change and he was paying attention to the shift in the music instead of the world around him.

“Good morning,” she said. 

She had sort of appeared at his elbow. He hadn’t heard the door. He startled and nearly spilled a cup of glaze all over everything. He managed to catch it before it went over and ruined the entire tray of muffins beside him. He made sure it was on solid ground before turning to look at her. 

She was smiling at him. She was pretty. It was the kind of pretty that had grown on him in the weeks since he’d met her. It wasn’t any one detail. She had pulled her hair back in a ponytail that tumbled down her back in loose soft curls. Her eyes were a soft gray. She had a very nice smile and a better laugh. She was also quiet but intensely present in every conversation she had, even with customers. Maybe that was it, the way she never tried to hide her intelligence or her interest in a topic. 

“It smells even better in here this early,” she said. 

“The Italian loaves just went in,” he told her. 

“That would do it,” she said. “Do you always listen to music?” 

“Most of the time.”  

“Do you dance?” 

“I play,” he said. 

He said it like it wasn’t a big deal. He’d been meant to go to the Royal Academy. His father had moved the family back from Shanghai to make it possible but then Jem had gotten sick and spent most of his high school years in and out of hospitals instead of in and out of practice rooms and recital halls. He had lived through it, recovered, mostly, he wasn’t dying anymore anyways. He had lingering issues that made any job that required more than 4 hours of anything nearly impossible. The bakery fit. He could get up early for four hours of work, go home and sleep, then get up again and teach music lessons in the afternoon. He played was true but it covered up a lot of the story. 

She raised her eyebrows so he added, “I play the violin.” 

“Oh, I think Will mentioned something about you giving lessons. You don’t dance?” 

“God no.” 

“How do you listen to something like this and not want to dance?” she asked. 

“Because I will fall down or otherwise embarrass myself,” Jem told her. 

“You will not, you’d probably make falling down look graceful,” she said. 

He had turned back to his plate of muffins and his cup glaze because looking at her was distracting and he didn’t want to do or say something inappropriate. He looked back at her as she said that and while she held his gaze there was just a hint of a blush. 

“I promise you, I’m scrawny flailing arms and I swear profusely in Chinese, it’s not graceful,” he said. 

“I could teach you to dance. Waltzes are easy. Movies make them look all impressive and dramatic but they’re easy.” 

He turned to her and she was still watching him with those even eyes and the blush that he might have been imagining. She glanced down and away and then smiled and looked back up, holding out a hand. 

“You’re going to teach me to waltz, now?” 

“You’re bread has another ten minutes and that’s the only tray of muffins you still have to finish. I only need to open the cash register and put down the chairs. We’ve got enough time,” she said. 

No. That was a very distracting, very bad idea. He put down the cup and wiped his hands on his apron. Bad idea. He was going to embarrass himself. And besides, Will had practically called dibs on the girl the moment he’d seen her. Was this flirting? Should he make up an excuse to run to the market and buy more cherries instead of waiting for Charlotte to do it? 

He’d already held out his hand to her and she grinned at him as she took it and pulled him out to the open space near the ovens. She got his hands in the right place and gave him another smile before she started trying to explain where to put his feet. 

Very distracting

She smelled like some kind of floral shampoo and her hand was warm in his and she kept adjusting his hand on her waist because he couldn’t figure out how to keep it in the right place without being far too aware of her body. She laughed at him as he failed to figure out what she wanted him to do with his feet. 

“Stop being so cute,” she told him. 

“What?” 

“You scrunch your face up when you get frustrated, it’s adorable.” 

“You think I’m adorable?” 

“You are. It’s an objective observation.” 

He failed to get his feet in the right place again and she stumbled over his outstretched ankle and he had to catch her to keep from dumping her on the floor. He swore in Chinese but managed to keep her from tumbling to the floor. She was laughing and grabbed hold of him as he pulled her back up onto her feet. They were much closer now. 

“Hi,” she said. 

They were nose to nose. He should have been untangling himself from her but she’d wrapped an arm around his shoulder at some point in the falling and he didn’t want to give up having her in his arms just yet. 

“Sorry,” he said. 

She shook her head at him and cocked her head to the side while resettling her arms around his neck. She was close enough to kiss and she was watching him so carefully. 

He wasn’t even sure if he’d done it or if she had. The first brush of lips was just that. A brush of lips against his. She was the one who pulled him in closer and kissed him back.  For once in his life, for maybe the first time in his life, he got out of his own way and didn’t overthink it. The little voice that analyzed and rationalized everything was blissfully silent as he leaned in to kiss her back. 

She tasted a little like coffee and fit in against him like she’d been designed for it. His arm found it’s way around her waist and he felt her smile against his mouth when there was a little break in the kiss so they could catch a breath. Only a moment, then she kissed him again. 

The waltz still played in the background and he’d never be able to hear this piece again without remembering this moment. 

Then the timer for the oven went off and they both jumped. Tessa pulled back and Jem turned to look at the oven. He’d forgotten that he was standing in the kitchen at work. She laughed and it broke the ice of the awkwardness that had started to creep into the moment. Jem grinned at her. 

“I gotta go wash tables,” she said. 

“Bread,” he said. 

“Ok,” she said. 

He started to step back towards the beeping oven. 

“Wait,” she said grabbing him by the tie of the apron at his waist and tugging him towards her for one last quick kiss. Then she stepped away and walked back towards the swinging doors out to the cafe. He stood and watched her go for a moment before turning back to the ovens and his real life.


	5. At the Drive In

Will had borrowed his sister's minivan. She was only three years older than he was but had married young and had two kids that required an unimaginable amount of stuff and the van was about the size of Will’s apartment. She'd given him the car for the entire weekend on the promise that he clean it out properly. He had told her that his was in the shop. His wasn't. His was just a really small sedan. The minivan had fold down seats that left enough space in the back that you could put up the roof and dump some pillows and mats in the back and fit three people comfortably. That was all he really needed.

He had both Jem and Tessa signed on to join him at some charity drive in theater way out in the country on a Saturday night. He was pointedly not thinking about whether or not he wanted it to be a date and if he did want it to be a date, who he wanted it to be a date with. That was all tangled and confusing so he had decided to start ignoring it completely.

He was a mess. He knew it. Tessa cuddled when they had their movie nights, though she'd backed out of the last two without giving an excuse. It had barely been two weeks, he saw her almost daily at work but he missed curling up with her while a movie played. That didn't mean that Jem couldn't stop his heart with a smile. He didn't know what he wanted but he knew that none of it was attainable.

Drive in theater for charity? That was attainable.

Jem had raised a silent eyebrow at the van before he'd gotten in.

Tessa had asked him how many children he had.

"I've got two nieces and a nephew," he had told her as she'd leaned into the open window of the driver's side and peered past him at the back seat. The car seats were still at Ella's house but there were probably toys still poking out of corners. He wasn't sure it was possible to get them all out. He'd picked up Jem first and he'd taken the front seat.

"I guess you're parents don't badger you about grandkids," Jem said.

"Oh, no, they do, I've got two sisters. Cece has one kid, Ella has two but no, none of those kids are Herondales so I still need to have kids to pass the name along," he said with an eye roll. "It's a pretentious fucking name. No one else needs it. Maybe when I do marry, I'll just take their name so that my parents are forever cheated out of baby Herondales."

"Can you imagine him with kids?" Jem asked.

"He'd either be the best dad ever or a completely irresponsible train wreck," Tessa said.

"Hey! I would not be a train wreck. I've got no intentions of doing it any time soon. So both of you and my mother and my grandmother can all stop mentioning it. But you should know, I would be a fantastic father," Will said.

"Really?" Jem said.

"Listen, James, you'd be the obnoxiously perfect super-parent, we all know this and so you preemptively judging me for putting on Disney movies and gating my children into the playroom is hardly fair," Will said.

Tessa had gotten left in the back seat and she and Jem exploded with laughter and proceeded to tease him about kids and parents the rest of the way out in the hedgerows of the little English villages. It was nice. He liked not having to divide their attention with anything else. He had gotten used to be able to have Tessa to himself but having Jem all to himself was rarer and having them both in the same place when that place wasn't work, that had only happened twice and it was a rare kind of joy.

"I can't have kids, if you pay me well, I'll baby sit yours sometimes. You'll have to pay me very well though because they'd be tiny versions of you and someone willing to get into bed with you. That would be terrifying," Jem said.

"You can't have kids?" Will asked.

"Probably not, I mean I haven't tried but there were an awful lot of pretty toxic drugs involved in keeping me alive when I was fifteen. According to my doctors, my chances of ever having kids is pretty damn low," Jem said.

He said it like it was nothing. Just another fact. The sky is blue. I almost died when I was fifteen. Whatever.

Will glanced at him but he was looking out the window and Will couldn't see his face to try and figure out what feelings went with that declaration. Will glanced up in the rear view mirror to catch a glimpse of Tessa frowning a little at Jem too. Then he looked back at the road and decided to honour the decision. If Jem wanted to treat it like just another fact, then so would he.

"I wouldn't pay you to look after my kids, they'd decide that they liked you more than me and then I'd feel guilty for the rest of my damn life," Will said.

"I bet your nieces and nephews adore you," Jem said with a laugh and a smile in his direction. The smile might have been about the comment but Will was pretty sure it was a way of saying thank you for not making it an issue.

"They do. I'm irresponsible and let them eat candy and play with toy guns and write the oldest one excuse notes for not doing his homework. I'm the cool uncle," Will said.

"I'd let you watch my kids, kids need to be spoiled sometimes," Tessa said.

"Ha! Vindication!"

"She's just being nice."

"I am, I just didn't want you to be sad."

"The two of you are ganging up on me, I should leave you here by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere."

"We're not even out of London proper yet," Jem pointed out.

"I could probably walk home from here without getting lost," Tessa added.

"Ugh. How about that local sports team?" Will said.

It was a ridiculous enough attempt at changing the subject to make them both laugh and that was enough. The conversation wove onto other things. Mundane things, nonsensical things, things that made Tessa argue and Jem laugh, things that made Tessa laugh and Jem roll his eyes. Will let go of his urge to make sense of it, breaking it down into comprehensible little pieces didn't matter. He just let himself enjoy the drive and the presence of these two people.

The theater was rigged up in a field. They paid the ticket and Will parked near the back. He set the car up backwards so that the hatch of the van could be opened and the space where the back row of seats was meant to be could serve as a space to sit. He'd thrown a bunch of camping mattresses and pillows in the back to both cover the spots on the carpet that were probably baby vomit and to try and make it comfortable.

He considered it and decided that he might have over estimated the space when he’d been looking at it on his own. 

"I wish you would have explained this a little better," Tessa said standing by the car.

"Why?"

"Because I would have dressed for it."

It was summer and it was humid and warm and she had worn a sun dress. He had been careful not to notice too much. It was a loose floral printed thing that left her shoulders bare and somehow managed to both cover and show off her body when she moved. It was a soft fabric, the kind of thing that t-shirts and pajamas were made out of and she stood by the van and the breeze was enough to push it against her legs. He dragged his attention back up to her face because he was not going to notice that. Her hair was down too. She was casual and soft and unbearably attractive.

"It's fine. You're fine," Will said.

She raised her eyebrows at him but didn't push the argument. There was popcorn for sale and the big screen of painted plywood was already showing an advertisement for the charity they had supported with their tickets.

They settled in. A pile of pillows, Tessa tucked into the space between them. Their backs up against the seats like it was a couch. They had purchased popcorn, smuggled in bottle of wine, and dug out the stash of candy that Will had got at a dollar store. Tessa had complained about what she was wearing but once she was settled in, she didn't seem to care so much. Her dress had slipped up her legs to show her knees and when she laughed at something Jem said, she leaned into Will's shoulder and the movement made the dress ride higher.

The movie was about something.

He didn't know what.

Tessa relaxed. Jem talked through the movie even worse than she usually did. Tessa whispered commentary about the film. Jem just talked as though he didn’t really care what was happening on screen. Will didn't really care about the screen either.

Tessa dozed off with her head against Jem's shoulder. She had slouched down a little and curled up so that her back was pressed against Will's side and she had dropped an arm over Jem's waist. Jem was stroking her fingers and had gone very quiet as soon as she'd found her way into the position. He smiled at the top of her head.

"She will sleep through any movie," Will said.

Jem looked up and blinked at Will as though he'd forgotten that they weren't alone. The feeling in Will's chest tightened. Jem looked so happy to have Tessa settled in against him like that and Will had spent the last two weeks missing her and Jem never looked quite that happy when he was talking to Will and the feeling too it's time settling into true jealousy but once he'd realized what it was, it was impossible to ignore. He forgot what he was going to say.

"She falls asleep during your movie nights too?" Jem asked.

"Yeah," Will said.

He had been comfortable. Now he wasn't. He shifted and turned back to the screen but the pillow he was leaning against was lumpy and he was caught up against the hard plastic of the wheel well and he wanted to get up. He didn't move.

"Seriously?" Jem said.

"What?" Will turned to look back at him.

Jem hit him in the arm and Will glared at him.

"You don't get to shut down every attempt I make at flirting with you and then get jealous over this," he said.

"I- what?" Will said.

"Or are you jealous over her?" Jem asked.

"He's not into me," Tessa said with a little laugh. Not asleep then. Not entirely asleep at least. She didn't lift her head and her voice sounded sleepy.

"What?"

"He's at least a little bit into you," Jem said.

Will stared at them. Tessa pushed herself up and was looking down at Jem as they argued a little bit as though Will wasn't even there. Beyond the van, the movie was still playing. He could hear the sound of children playing in the field between the cars and that just made the moment more disorienting.

"Stop talking about me like I'm not here," he said. “Are you jealous?” Tessa asked.

She had this casual directness that snuck up on him every time. She was careful and polite and then she’d turn on him and ask him something like that, leaving him blinking and confused. She had twisted to look at him but she was still lying against Jem and looking completely content to be there. Will tried to reorder his thoughts. The silence dragged on. It was a silence filled with the noise of the world around them. The movie soundtrack played through the car’s radio, the children in the next car were arguing, the sound of popcorn and voices from the concession stand drifted in. But in the little world in the small space of the back of the car, the silence was still maddening. 

“Yes,” he admitted.

“Why?”

He looked away, out at the rest of the world.

“I’m a selfish bastard,” Will said.

“No, you’re not,” she said.

“Pretty sure I am.”

“You’ve got pretentious taste and you’re a little self-centered but that doesn’t make you a selfish bastard.”

“I can’t tell if that was a complement or an insult,” Will said.

Jem laughed and it smoothed the edges off Will’s discomfort. He reached over Tessa and shoved Jem in the side of the face which only made him laugh harder. Tessa sighed at both of them as Jem punched Will in the arm. She started to pull herself up to a proper sitting position to get out of the way but Jem caught hold of her and pulled her back in against his side before she could go anywhere. Will didn’t try to punch Jem again but gave him a mock glare that just made him laugh again.

“Anyways,” Will said laying the sarcasm on heavily enough to cover up any last bits of the anxiety, “You should know that I’m a selfish bastard and am not a fan of the two of you having some sort of super secret special thing that I’m not a part of.”

Tessa looked up at him. Her expression was considering and soft.

He raised his eyebrows at her.

“You can be a part of it,” she said.

“What?”

“I always like having you here and I think Jem is a little bit in love with you.”

Will had been staring at her and the way her hair fell around her face in loose curls. His attention jumped to Jem as the screen outside flashed to something brighter and his face was cast in shadows. As the light faded back to normal, Jem was watching but not arguing the point. Tessa was pressed into Jem’s chest and Jem hadn’t relaxed the arm he had wrapped around her. They were still curled up together, very much a couple but they were a couple who were watching him.

“I’m going to say yes to that offer and you’re both going to regret it,” Will said.

“I won’t,” Jem said.

“I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it,” Tessa said.

Will was frozen. Not by indecision but by shock or maybe confusion. Jem sat up and pulled Tessa along with him. They were both closer now. Will’s bravado and sarcasm had deserted him. He was completely disarmed as Jem leaned in to him and caught him by the back of the neck. Will was confused about where Tessa was in all this. He wasn’t entirely sure which limbs were his and which ones weren’t. She was there, he heard her voice but couldn’t process what she was saying when Jem was leaning in like this.

Jem kissed him.

For a brief moment, that was all it was. Jem’s mouth pressed against his. But the moment didn’t last. Will leaned in and kissed him back, pressed up close and kissed him hard. Someone laughed and he was too disoriented to realize that it was Tessa. He wasn’t willing to stop. It felt like the kind of thing where stopping would mean letting the bubble pop or waking up from a dream. Jem held on and kissed him hard and Will forced himself to calm down enough to kiss him back properly. Slower then once they had found a rhythm for that, deeper.

The kiss paused so they could catch their breaths. Jem leaned his forehead against Will’s and laughed before pulling away enough to bury his face against Tessa’s neck.  She reached out and played with Will’s hair. Her touch was far more tentative than Jem’s had been.

Will hesitated and edged his way into her personal space. He kissed her cheek and waited for her to smile before he tilted her chin back and leaned down to kiss her.

Her hesitancy lasted only a few seconds before she was pressing back into him and matching him. She moaned a little and he pushed in deeper. She was held in place by Jem’s body on one side and Will’s on the other but instead of being made tense or uncomfortable, she was relaxing into it.  Will could feel her get more comfortable. She smiled against his mouth, she draped an arm around his neck and fit herself into the spaces between them.

Will was left disoriented and happy. The kissing didn’t last as long as he wanted it to. There were children and old folks and an obnoxious guy selling popcorn all wandering past them. Jem’s expression said he didn’t care any more than Will did but Tessa kept noticing people and drawing back from too much intimacy.

She settled in with her head on Jem’s chest and Will pulled her knees over his lap and slouched down so they were all tucked in together. Tessa played with his hair. He wasn’t sure that she had noticed that she was doing it. He cuddled in closer and tilted his head back so she could do anything she wanted. Jem had gotten a hold of Will’s hand and their fingers were laced together on Tessa’s stomach.

They didn’t disentangle themselves until after the credits on the movie had finished rolling and the screen had gone dark.

There was no where else he wanted to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: This is a way cuter than anything my friends and I ever did (or what Will put together for this scene) but this is how I watched most movies in high school. The drive in near our town did double features on weekends and ran movies from dusk to dawn on holiday weekends. We would borrow my dad's jeep and my friend's mom's mini van and park them side by side and treat them as sofas packed with pillows and snacks into which we'd pack like four or five people each.  It was never a romantic thing for us but it makes a good setting for a romantic scene, doesn't it?
> 
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> [](https://www.pinterest.co.kr/pin/339318153148418473/)


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